Just an hour ago, I was asking director Jonathan Mostow questions about his new movie “The Surrogates”. Since the movie doesn’t get released until the end of September, most of what he said will have to wait. However, since he gave me a brief update on the long in development “Sub-Mariner” movie, I figured you’d like to see that right now. After the jump watch what Jonathan had to say…plus a bit more.

Here’s what you need to know: last week, I did an editing room visit for “The Surrogates” and after it ended, I spent about 5 or 10 minutes talking with Mostow about not only his new film, but what he has in development. Of course, “Sub-Mariner” came up and while he said very little to me on camera today, last week he was a bit more open. Since I wasn’t recording our conversation, here’s a summary:

Unlike “Iron-Man”, “Captain America” and “The Avengers”, which are owned by Marvel, Universal owns the rights to “Sub-Mariner” and can produce the film. According to Jonathan, Universal always renewed the option for the property, so they have the rights like 20th Century Fox has with “X-Men”, and like Sony has with “Spider-Man”. What that means is if Universal eventually makes “Sub-Mariner”, he’s not going to be part of the ever growing Marvel Universe unless Marvel and Universal strike a deal of some kind.

The other thing he told me was that the project was in active development. He said the big hang-up is getting the script right and they haven’t cracked it yet. He said making a great super-hero movie is really tough and without the right script it’s impossible. While I’d love to see a movie based on “Sub-Mariner”, it was refreshing to hear him talk so much about the ensuring the script’s quality before they can make it.

Obviously, with his work on “The Surrogates” coming to a close next month, maybe “Sub-Mariner” will be the next thing he makes. But at this point it’s still a big question mark.